"Our goal is that there is marriage equality in Pennsylvania." - Sasha Ballen

When a Montgomery County court clerk in July started to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in spite of a law banning such unions, Sasha Ballen and her longtime girlfriend Diana Spagnuolo were first in line to get one of the licenses.

Ballen and Spagnuolo were married the following weekend on July 28th in their suburban Philadelphia home.

Now the two are among the 21 Pennsylvania couples who have leveled yet another challenge to the state's Defense of Marriage Act. Ballen and Spagnuolo and the other plaintiffs on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court seeking to overturn the state's marriage law, which bans same-sex marriage and gives no recognition to such marriages performed in other states.

"Our goal is that there is marriage equality in Pennsylvania," Ballen said Thursday during a phone interview with PennLive. "We want our license to be recognized as valid which I believe is reasonable based on Judge Pelligriniâ's decision."

Also on Thursday, Massachusetts couple now residing in Pennsylvania asked a court to force their new home state to recognize their same-sex marriage.

The lawsuit filed by Cara Palladino and Isabelle Barker, who moved to the Philadelphia area in 2005, names Gov. Tom Corbett and Attorney General Kathleen Kane as defendants. Their federal lawsuit also seeks to declare unconstitutional the Pennsylvania statute barring recognition of same-sex marriages.

Ballen, who along with Spagnuolo are the parents of three children, said the plaintiffs seek to declare the state's marriage law unconstitutional so that all couples can marry in Pennsylvania.

She said she and fellow plaintiffs were spurred to file the lawsuit after Pellegrini handed his order to Hanes but did not weigh in on the legal status of the documents the court clerk had issued. Montgomery County plans to appeal the court's decision.

Ballen said she and Spagnuolo consider their marriage license legal.

"Legally we are considering it valid," she said. "The court did not invalidate it."

She said the state would invariably have to decide in April 2014, when they file a joint tax return, whether their marriage is legal. She said she wanted the court to weigh in in advance of that decision.

"We are viewing our marriage as being legal but the state has been explicit in saying it is not," Ballen said.

Pennsylvania's Defense of Marriage Act faces a challenge in federal court. The lawsuit, filed in July by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of 32 gay and lesbian couples, seeks also to overturn the ban on gay marriage and force the state to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.

The federal challenge came one month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on gay marriages and punted back to California its ban on gay marriages, allowing a lower court ruling to stand.

"This is a civil rights issue," Ballen said. "I'm confident that it's always right for committed couples to be married. The time is right now. It was right last year and it will be right next year."

The 21 couples in the lawsuit were the state residents who tried to intervene in the Hanes case, petitioning the court to allow them to intervene on his behalf. Pellegrini struck down that request.

"The judge said nothing about the people who got the licenses and married," said David Cohen, the attorney for the plaintiffs. "They feel like they have lawful marriages but that the state is questioning that. For now they feel they need to get a determination from the court that their marriages are legal."

Cohen is confident his clients will win their court case.

"I think their constitutional arguments are almost bullet proof," he said. "I think the time is right for Pennsylvania to join the rest of the states in this region with marriage equality."

Pennsylvania is the only state in the Atlantic Coast between Maine and the District of Columbia to not recognize gay marriages or civil unions.

"It's a clear standout in this region and the time is right for Pennsylvania to come to the modern era," Cohen said. "The Legislature is not going to do it so the court needs to make the state step in line."

Another lawsuit in Commonwealth Court also is challenging the state's marriage law.

Nicola Cucinotta and Tamara Davis of Chester County earlier this month filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state's ban on gay marriage. Cucinotta and Davis are not involved in Ballen's lawsuit, nor did they seek to intervene in the Hanes case.

"I was concerned. I wanted to make sure we challenged DOMA at this time," Cucinotta said. "And to challenge it against the Pennsylvania constitution. We think it's contradictory to the constitution."

She said she fully supported Hanes in his actions.

"He really got this thing moving," she said.

Similar to the ACLU-led lawsuit, the lawsuit filed by Ballen and 41 others names Corbett, Kane and state Health Secretary Michael Wolf as defendants.

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